Monotype histMonotype Bembo is one of the most famous revivals of Aldus Manutius's 15th-century roman type. It was created under the influence of Monotype executive and printing historian Stanley Morison by the design team at the Monotype factory in Salfords, Surrey.
Bembo's development took place following a series of breakthroughs in printing technology which had occurred over the last fifty years. Pantograph engraving had allowed matrices, the moulds used to cast metal type, to be precisely mechanically engraved from large plan drawings. This removed much of the labour and unpredictability of manufacturing, which previously had been done by carefully carving a punch in steel at the exact size of the desired letter before stamping it into copper to make the matrix. It also allowed the same basic design to be rapidly issued in a large range of sizes. In addition, hand printing had been superseded by the hot metal typesetting systems of the period, of which Monotype's was one of the most popular (in competition with that of Linotype's). Both allowed metal type to be quickly cast under the control of a keyboard, eliminating the need to manually cast metal type and slot it into place into a printing press. With no need to keep type in stock, just the matrices used as moulds to cast the type, printers could use a wider range of fonts and there was increasing demand for varied typefaces. Artistically, meanwhile, the preference for using mechanical, geometric Didone fonts introduced in the eighteenth and nineteenth century was being displaced by a revival of interest in 'old-style' serif fonts developed before this, a change that has proved to be lasting.[21][22]
Monotype commissioned from the calligrapher Alfred Fairbank a nearly upright italic design based on the work of 16th-century writing master Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi, a contemporary to Tagliente, and considered using it as Bembo's companion italic before deciding it was too eccentric for this purpose.[16][b] Monotype created a more conventional design influenced by Tagliente's typeface and sold Fairbank's design as Bembo Condensed Italic.[24][25][26] It was digitised as 'Fairbank' in 2003, and sold independently of Monotype's Bembo digitisations.[27][28][c] Monotype's publicity team described the italic as 'fine, tranquil' in a 1931 showing, emphasising their desire to avoid a design that seemed too eccentric.[29]ory